Today what i want to talk about is a question that does come up quite frequently, usually among hte more general fitness folks who are doing a good bit of weight training, getting stronger or bigger but then decide that for some variety they want to do an endurance event.

So today I want to talk about some strategies that can be helpful to help folks get through it or, at the very least, maybe enjoy it more. And I’m not going to bore you with the obvious strategies, listening to music, reading a magazine or book or whatever. You know that already. If you’re lucky maybe your gym has a cardio theater where you can watch movies; in my experience all that ends up happening is that you end up watching the same middle of the same crappy movie (when I was in Utah, I must have seen the middle hour of the horrible Queen Latifah/LL Cool J movie “Last Holiday” a solid dozen times).

So having looked at the absolute disaster that was the 2011 Northshore Inline Marathon and subsequently survived my final hour bike ride at UT Austin, it’s time to put the 2011 season to rest with a year-end wrap up, look back, and post season analysis along with some general plans going forwards.

I was seriously tempted to title this in the Why the US Sucks at Olympic lifting nomenclature to make people think that that series wasn’t over but it is (I might do a short addendum, not sure yet). But among all of the other reasons I wanted to finish the mega-series on Friday one was that it was time to move back to self-indulgent prattling about my inline racing, primarily my final race of the season along with an end of season wrap up. Today I’ll talk in overview of what I did following the Tour of Chicago leading into my final race (I was actually travelling the day I posted the final part of the OL’ing series) the Northshore Inline Marathon along with a race report.

I slept well enough Saturday night, fatigue will do that too you. It hadn’t rained although there was more ominous lightening during the night. Alarm went off at an all too early 6:45am (it takes me about 3 hours to get generally warmed up and race time was at 9:45am). I cleaned up and ate a small breakfast (protein bar + banana) since blood glucose/glycogen could be an issue for a race this long and had a bunch of water so I’d be hydrated but have time to pee out any extra. Legs were definitely a touch heavy and I was feeling the two races from yesterday.

Ok, picking up from Methods of Endurance Training: 2011 Season Part 14, it’s time for the first part of the race report. There will actually be a bit of overlap with the previous article just in terms of the days. And if it seems a bit more stream of consciousness than usual, it’s because I’m doing it on the fly to kill time in the hotel.

Today I’ll look at how the block actually progressed week by week (or didn’t), note anything of interest and talk about my final taper to the Chicagoland Inline Marathon.. More specifically, I was doing the Tour of Chicago, 3 races across two days consisting of a 10k pack race Saturday morning, a 2 mile individual time trial Saturday afternoon and the full Marathon pack race on Sunday. It was going to be a hell of a weekend that was for sure and it required that I develop pretty much every physiological system as well as I could.

Ok, time to prattle again. Previously, in Methods of Endurance Training: 2011 Season Part 11 and Methods of Endurance Training: 2011 Season Part 12, I looked in some detail at my post-race analysis of my performance at the Texas Road Rash, what I had determined and how I had set up my training to address the problems leading into the next major event, the Chicagoland Inline Tour an omnium type event consisting of three races across two days. If nothing else, this would make travelling worthwhile since I’d get to do a lot of racing (and be flat exhausted afterwards).

Fixing top speed meant focusing on two primary issues: sheer top end power output along with the neuromuscular skills needed to go fast. The power outputs could be developed on the bike, the skill work would have to be done skating. Today I want to look at the plan I set up based on these goals along with details about why I did things the way I did.

Ok, time to get back to self-indulgent prattling mode, hopefully this won’t screw up my training again. Previously, in Texas Road Rash 2011: Race Report Part 1 and Texas Road Rash 2011: Race Report Part 2 I gave a detailed description of my performance in the elite marathon division of the race (my first time racing elite or at the marathon distance).